Monday, August 9, 2010

Despite the Gadgets...

PE is still the most important training measurement tool. What's "PE"? Perceived Exertion. Which is a fancy way of saying how hard did the ride feel. WKO+ and PowerTap give me Training Stress Score (TSS) and Intensity Factor (IF).

Comparing yesterday's Tempo paced ride; and today's Intense Interval ride... both rides had an almost identical TSS. Yesterday's ride had a low IF (tempo paced!). Today's ride had a high IF. Yesterday left me feeling fresh -low PE. Today wiped me out -high PE.

Both rides should have left me equally tired. Theoretically. The fact that the intensity left me wiped is telling me I need to work on my intensity training. This despite having worked on this... I need to develop this regime more.

All of this to say... listening to the body is always important. Gadgets help generate data, but unless correlated to what the body is doing... the numbers are useless. There's no more basic measure than "how do I feel?". It's also one of the most important.

0 comments: